


The Cottage, the Ceremony

by Dragonsquill (dragonsquill)



Series: The Cottage, the Husbands [11]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Multi, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Twelve Returns, Weddings, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-02 00:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsquill/pseuds/Dragonsquill
Summary: The self indulgent-ist fluff with humor: Twelve arrives at Anthony and his angel's cottage the day before a special ceremony with bespoke clothing in tow.  It's not your usual sort of wedding, but it suits them.The lying liars.At this point, I don't know how much sense this will make without having read the rest of the series, but especially "The Tailor" and "The Godson."





	1. Chapter 1

Fashion was a cutthroat business, and so Twelve rarely took a holiday. When she did, it had to be meticulously planned around the various seasons that made up her professional life, with an average preparatory time of eight months in return for one week somewhere relaxing. This, however, was a special occasion and could be audited as a work event, so Twelve was able to give Anthony a date only five months out for when she could come to the South Downs to see the “little shack” he shared with his Angel. And, of course, to deliver two extremely special outfits for a certain celebration.

She was feeling very smug. She’d called it, after all; Angel asked Anthony, and not the other way around, despite the years Anthony spent pining. She’d told him to take care of the asking, of course, but he’d only made one of those odd noises of his and changed the subject while his ears turned red.

Such a delicate creature, Anthony. And such a jackass. She did quite adore him. 

Twelve parked her car in front of an almost offensively charming cottage, complete with (almost unbelievably) colorful garden and climbing vines. There wasn’t a single black statue or city scent to be seen or smelled; if she didn’t spot the familiar Bentley gleaming in the sunset oranges, she’d have suspected she’d found the wrong place. At least, until she heard Antony’s Angel’s warm voice on the perfect breeze, calling, “She’s here, darling!”

Twelve chuckled. She loved how Angel – ah, Aziraphale – refused to give in to Antony’s aesthetic, up to and including his use of the soppiest of pet names. Lovely.

Antony appeared first, impeccably but randomly dressed, designer shades in place. “There you are,” he drawled, his hips doing their usual war with gravity, “thought you’d lost your way and been eaten by a bear, out here in the country.”

Twelve raised an eyebrow at him, not bothering to answer. Instead, she purposefully shifted her gaze beyond him and matched his angel, beam for beam. “Aziraphale!”

“My dear Twelve!” 

They met in the middle for a hug that was rare on both parts, being generally protective of their personal space (though Angel clearly made a number of allowances for all of Antony’s hard and pointy bits, bless his heart). Antony hissed childishly under his breath as Twelve smooched the air beside Angel’s soft cheek.

Perfect.

“Come along,” she said airily, “Antony, darling, do grab the garment bags, and no peeking.”

He muttered some more, but did as she asked. His angel chuckled and patted her hand, tucking it in his elbow as he led her down the garden path and to the front door (painted black, apparently Antony won some sort of coin toss here, though it looked quite lovely against the light colored brick). “Do come in,” Aziraphale said with the air of a man somewhat nervous about showing off his home. “The timing’s not quite right, but I’m always famished after survive a long drive-”

“Oi!” Antony interjected as he lifted the three garment bags and accessories box with apparent ease. Neither Twelve, who had seen Antony drive, nor Aziraphale, who had driven in the death trap with him, paid him any mind.

“-so we’ve some lovely sandwiches Crowley made and tea!”

Antony’s angel motioned her through the doorway into a cheerful open room that managed, somehow, to contain book shelves and plants and copious sunlight, all at once. Modern furniture with tartan blankets, ancient rugs and sharp, straight lines – she smiled. “It’s wonderful,” she said honestly, and both the angel and Antony himself beamed at her. 

“Guest room’s this way,” Antony said, all business. “Teenage boy usually stays there, but I promise we washed the sheets.”

“Crowley!” 

Twelve and Antony exchanged amused glances and he led her to the little back bedroom, which was rather overrun with building sets and comic books, but looked comfortable none-the-less. “Thank you for having me,” she said. “It’s so rare I get to stay in a country cottage. I rather feel like I’m in a PG Wodehouse novel.”

“Save the literary allusions for Aziraphale, he’ll love it.” Crowley carefully hung the garment bags, thin fingers running over them curiously. 

“After tea,” Twelve told him. “Believe you me, you don’t want crumbs on yours.” 

He grinned. “And Aziraphale’s?”

“Can take on crumbs with class. I am an expert, darling.” 

This time, he offered her his arm, and she took it, already asking if sandwiches made by his melodramatic hands were safe to consume. Only when his angel assured her, over Antony’s offended noises, that they were, did she settle down for a lovely tea with two of her favorite clients.

\--------

The clothing was perfect.

Of course.

As if she would make anything _but._

\-------

The gathering was the next day, in the sweet-scented garden, buzzing merrily with gentle bees (Twelve also spotted a few small snakes hidden here and there, but Antony assured her they were harmless, while Aziraphale proclaimed them, “Quite precious, really, they adore Crowley,” which Twelve agreed showed good taste; she managed to snap a picture of Antony’s red cheeks). 

There were elegant tables covered in delicious food, all provided by the people milling in and out of the cottage. Most of them, it seemed, had travelled, and the local inn hadn’t been so full for some time. Twelve knew Anathema, of course, and they quickly came together to renew their friendship; the others she knew mainly by reputation. There was the teenager who usually had her room, improbably named Warlock (she would have to tell him that names, like genders, are not set in stone, should he decide he wasn’t interested in the natural or dark arts); an older woman with dyed red hair who exited the house on Angel’s heels, having helped him get ready for the occasion; she was accompanied by a decidedly unpleasant little man who tried to say something about Twelve’s height and shoe size that earned him a spiked heel to the toes. Tracey apparently approved of the punishment, despite their being a couple. There were four more children, none of whom had apparently bothered to bring along an adult, and who were determined to bring young Warlock into their fold; and dear Newton, Anathema’s husband, who watched over the strange gathering with the gentle bemusement of a basically ordinary man surrounded by the extraordinary and very pleased with it all.

It was not, perhaps, what one might have expected from two gentlemen with deep pockets and Antony’s sense of style, but somehow a garden potluck wedding worked just fine. 

And there, in the middle of it all, were Antony and his angel. 

The dress was perfect, as it should be given the time Twelve and her assistants had put into the shimmering black bead work that changed the simple 20s stile shift dress into a hidden rainbow of color in just the right light. The cut was perfect for his long form, a tease of chest and a hint of calf. Twelve had done his hair herself, the curls that Aziraphale had mentioned the day they first met, trailing down his back as he kept a possessive arm around his angel’s waist. The glitter of white opals, the shine of his ring – black diamond, and how in the world Aziraphale got his hands on that was a mystery. Antony was sleek and stylish, a glittering shadow beside his angel’s exquisitely cut waistcoat and bespoke suit, as glimmering white as Antony’s dress was black. 

Antony all but glowed, and it was beautiful to see. Yes, it brought a few tears to Twelve’s eyes, but she was always ready for any eventuality, and her own emerald gown came with matching handkerchiefs. She didn’t usually react emotionally to events she worked, but she was here, not only as a designer, but as a guest. Among…well. Among Antony and Aziraphale’s family, if she was any judge of such things.

And she was.

“The dress is gorgeous,” Anathema told her when Antony appeared from the cottage with suitable flair. “Aziraphale hasn’t managed to look away for a moment.” 

“Of course not, I _am_, after all, a genius.” Twelve winked and sipped the truly exquisite champagne. They did know their alcoholic beverages. “If only I could have talked him into shoes.” 

“I think he’d have to lean over too much to steal kisses if you put him in heels,” Newt pointed out with a smile as Antony did just that. His bare toes – covered with delicate, tattooed scales (surely tattooed? Twelve didn’t know of any body modification that added scales of that sort of detail) – swept through the grass beside his angel’s boring old loafers. “Is there a reason for the 1920’s theme? Because they’re getting married in the 2020’s?”

Twelve hummed. “He said he missed out on them the first time,” she said thoughtlessly, because Antony often said nonsensical things, but the others all nodded as if it made perfect sense. “Something about taking a nap.”

There was no officiant. Twelve wasn’t certain they’d bothered to make the marriage official in any way – why bother, when they had been together for a long time, and were clearly dedicated? “It’s just about the party,” Antony had told her breezily, but she’d caught him moments later gazing at his ring like the star of a romantic film just as the violins swelled. Whether this was legal or not, it was so much more than a party to Antony and Aziraphale.

They kept gazing at each other, and barely acknowledged their guests, and if Twelve didn’t know better she’d say they were glowing rather more literally than people ought. 

There was no walk down the aisle, or standing on ceremony. They simply stood together in the midst of the laughter and food and music and flowers, and spoke to each other. Of course the guests fell quiet, but Aziraphale only gave them a smile, pushed up a bit on his toes, and whispered in his Antony’s ear. 

Brats! She wanted all the sappy details!

Antony’s throat clicked, and he wrapped his arms around Aziraphale like an especially affectionate snake, whispering right back to him and making Aziraphale laugh like heavenly bells. He tugged Antony’s face from his shoulder and pressed kisses here and there, and his words: _love, darling, my one, my love, my wily old serpent_ (surely not, that last one was hardly romantic, she must have misheard) – danced on the breeze light as cherry blossoms.

Antony smiled, and Aziraphale lifted his glasses away – a flash of strange yellow, a hint of gold – but before Twelve could see Antony’s mysterious eyes, they were closed. He pressed his forehead against Aziraphale’s, and he spoke in a language Twelve didn’t know. It rolled, somehow, over and through them, and she needed no translation for the millions of ways to say _I love you._

And then there was a shifting of air, and they had wings.

Twelve, her mouth agape, very nearly fell on her ass in the grass. Only Newton’s hands on one side and Anathema’s in the other kept her upright.

“I did wonder,” Anathema said, “if they’d remembered to tell you ahead of time.”

\----

_Wings._

Wings.

Fucking. Bloody. Wings. 

With fucking bloody _feathers._

Her first instinct was that this was the best magic show she’d ever seen.

Her second was to rush forward and protect her beautiful work from damage. Did suddenly appearing wings rip cloth?? She hadn’t heard anything-

Her third was to choke on a laugh and blurt:

_“Angel.”_

“And a demon,” Newton offered gently, still half holding her up with more strength than she’d have expected, if her brain was working. 

A.

Demon.

No. No, no no. Antony’s entire aesthetic could not be_ based on hell._ That was just –

Unimaginative.

She’d thought better of him.

Her mind did a backflip and she tried to catch up.

\-----

While Twelve enjoyed her existential crisis as regarded religion, metaphysical beings, and Antony’s insistence on wearing black all the time, a gasp rose from the others in attendance (why weren’t they having heart attacks? They_ knew_? She was going to personally murder Antony and his angel for- Angel. Actual angel??).

Her head spun.

“Oh,” Anathema breathed. “Oh, they’ve-”

Aziraphale opened his eyes, and there _was_ a glow. Twelve wasn’t imagining it. There was a gentle blue glow around him as he gazed into Antony’s eyes-

_Were his eyes completely yellow?!_

-and stopped breathing for a moment.

“Oh,” he whispered. “Oh _Crowley._”

They would explain to her later (after she was finished threatening them with horrible bodily harm which would “inconveniently discorporate us, dear girl, and really the head offices will no doubt be _horrible_ about the paperwork now that we’re retired”) that the shock of the other, better-informed guests was born not of the wings themselves, but of their _appearance._

They were silver.

Silver, like white gold, like starlight, like something even Twelve, with all her knowledge of color and design, couldn’t put into words. They shone in the sunlight, identical except for the tip of each individual feather – Aziraphale’s were bright white, and Crowley’s deepest black. 

“Darling,” Aziraphale breathed, “did you-”

Crowley shook his head and curved a wing forward, staring. “I can’t change yours,” he said, “and I could only ever manage the solid color when I changed mine.” 

And then he laughed. It was a laugh like bells, like barks, like ancient cities and sunrises, and his smile was wild and old and Aziraphale was laughing too, and they were in each other’s arms, kisses and hugs, and laughter. 

“On _our side_,” one of them said, or both of them, and their strange, mismatched family burst into applause as every one of them – even the unpleasant little man – reached for the commemorative monogrammed handkerchiefs Twelve had created for the occasion:

A snake with wings, in black, on a white field.

\-----

At some point, Twelve decided to take a nap, and she had a lovely dream of patterns that created themselves, so she didn’t have to bother with all the mathematics, and an entire store of cute and sexy women’s shoes in her size.

When she woke, the others had gone, and night was falling, and those two idiots were still staring at each other and fiddling with their matching rings (white gold for Antony, pink for Aziraphale), and they were so cute she decided the tongue-lashing of a lifetime could wait one night (it would just give her more time to prepare). 

After all, it was their wedding day.


	2. The Husbands, Some Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes and headcanons for this here Cottage series, several out of comments or conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered adding notes to each story, but that would clutter the first page, so for now I'm gathering them here! For the moment, this series is complete, but I really want more snake!Crowley so...heh heh heh...

**How did they get together in this universe? **

So, I wrote a little thing on tumblr, and tried to change it into a chapter for this, but the style I originally wrote it in works best. So this is how these two nerds got together:

While I love the idea of Crowley slowly moving into the bookshop, my heart also wants some “You could stay at my place” (in the tenderest voice of all time) and Aziraphale, once he’s agreed, is ALL IN but, being Aziraphale, neglects to mention this. Of course he still HAS the bookshop to open or not open as he pleases, but after the Ritz (followed by the requisite “How about a walk?” and “We should check on the ducks” and sundry other excuses not to part ways), he just tags happily after a confused Crowley all the way to the Mayfair flat “it’s quite drafty standing out here in the hallway, my dear boy” and Crowley can’t just say he’s surprised, because that would be insufficiently cool.

The next day Aziraphale goes to piddle around the bookshop (”taking inventory” so isn’t it a shame he can’t open to customers?) but as night falls here he is again, letting himself into Crowley’s flat (he has a key in case of out of control snake naps), arms filled with books and bags of tea and tins of biscuits and a few soft blankets and five more books just in case and maybe he miracled them all into two angelically themed shopping bags, but-

For the next two weeks, every evening after they’ve done their daily deeds (figuring out what that means in this New World, but Crowley gets bored easily and needs to go out and cause some low level mayhem, though he’s scaling back his Incredibly Impressive Impact Radius), there’s an angel on his sofa (his sofa was not this soft yesterday…or this long??), and there’s tea (”I don’t actually own a tea set, angel” “That’s fine!” he pulls one out of his Angelic Themed Shopping Bag a la Mary Poppins, it is covered in green plant designs and has a lovely snake coiling through them and making the handle), and one afternoon there’s a bookshelf and he’s quite certain he didn’t have a bookshelf but it’s filled with books on astronomy and plants and the 1920′s (he slept through those) so….

He wakes up one night and Aziraphale is perched in a chair (from whence this incredibly comfy looking armchair) reading by a little celestial light and that’s a bit creepy so he mutters, “Get in the bed, angel, this feels like a horror movie” and so Aziraphale does and perhaps from then on there’s an angel in the bed when he wants to sleep, shoes neatly beside the bed and sometimes reading aloud when Crowley is restless and were his towels this plush he wonders after his shower?

It takes him six months to look around the flat and see there’s five book cases filled with Aziraphale’s favorite books (naturally he recognizes Aziraphale’s favorites) and all the furniture LOOKS the same (other than all the incredibly warm, snake friendly blankets) but is suddenly sinfully comfy and perfectly sized for two, and there’s actual clothes hanging in an actual wardrobe he doesn’t recall having (it ruined the streamline minimalist design) and there’s confections in the cabinets and milk in the fridge and reusable shopping bags hanging neatly by the door from a little serpentine hook he doesn’t remember buying and always a pair of shoes tucked neatly underneath (but he doesn’t personally wear shoes and certainly not those old brown things) and the plants are exuding a sickening aura of smugness and somehow, he’s not actually terribly shocked when one morningish (clearly we’re not opening the shop at 9:30 today), Aziraphale gathers his ugly old shoes and his ancient coat and his Angelic Themed Shopping Bag and putters up to beam at Crowley and kiss him ever so gently on the very corner of his mouth and say, “I’ll be home by 5, darling, tea?” and putters right out the strangely cheerful (hadn’t he made it purposefully intimidating to stop visitors?) front door leaving a pink cheeked demon in his wake, fingertips touching that little spot by his lips.

\----------

**Story One: "The Cottage, The Serpent"**  
Why did I name the series this way? It is SO TERRIBLE and after I named this one I was stuck. WTH. What terrible titles.

There was a huge freeze in London, 1947. The timing isn't ideal with the timing of the Blitz scene in the show, but I wanted an actual historical event.

First Literary Nod: The idea of a nectarine as the meaning of life is from a very amusing old Star Trek: The Next Generation novel called Q-in-Law by Peter David. Q claims a nectarine is the meaning of life, only for it to turn out to be a lie later. I am still amazed and pleased someone actually caught that reference. Unrelated: I have a copy of this book signed by John de Lancie (Q; he also plays essentially the same character on MLP:FiM). He was a real dick that day, but apparently usually isn't.

**Story Two: "The Cottage, The Statue"**  
I just thought it was funny, I have no excuse.

Yes, the original Olympics were men only and in the nude. It's not REALLY mano a mano if someone has clothes on. Crowley DID show Aziraphale the WWE and Aziraphale WAS horrified but also became somewhat drawn into the "story" that's built into a WWE season, no that he would ever admit this. There was another festival for Hera where women could compete.

**Story Three: "The Cottage, His Wardrobe"**  
I do love what a bastard Aziraphale is in the book, which Michael got to show only through magnificent facial expressions, so there's a good dash of that in the series.

References _Death of a Salesman_, a play by Arthur Miller that is generally used to poke fun at bad local productions of plays in America, despite the fact that it won a Pulitzer and Tony the year it was first performed. It's a wonderful, dark play that must be performed by just the right people to be really amazing.  
Crowley also manipulates his angel by referencing the writing of Dame Agatha Christie, especially her Hercule Poirot novels (and the Suchet series, which adapted every single Poirot novel and short story), and Miss Jane Marple. The episode Crowley refuses to watch is based on _Curtain_, written early in Christie's career but published only after her death, in which Poirot solves the mystery of his on murder. Crowley is too soft to watch Poirot die (it just so happens this is the only Poirot I've never read...ahem...)

**Story Four: "The Cottage, His Darling"**  
Because my favorite thing about the show adaptation is genderfluid Crowley, and that when she is female she doesn't change her body at all, and just. Yas. I think it spoke to a lot of us in a wonderful way. I'd love to show you a picture of what she's wearing, but it exists only in my mind. It's off the shoulder, though? Wahoo bare shoulders? Eyebrow waggle??  
This is one of the fics that side-mentions their unnaturally beautiful garden, and yes, there probably will be one about how it pisses off the little old ladies in town until they make friends.

**Story Five: "The Cottage, The Bake Sale"**  
A friend suggested the bake sale, and I wrote the entire thing with the beverage on sale being hot cider before she reminded me that all cider is "hard cider" on her side of the pond. So it had to become tea.  
The girls, of course, proceed to come over to tea and learn how to cheat at cards.

**Story Six: "The Cottage, the Tailor"**  
Twelve! I was so amazed how welcoming people were to her? OCs are dangerous business. I didn't put in a lot of description so people can imagine her as they please, but in my head she is taller than Crowley, built along the lines of the magnificent Gwendolyn Christie (though beyond that they look nothing alike, as Twelve has beautiful dark skin and hair), gorgeous brown eyes, and feet that are a US size Women's 12,which are hard to find in the level of shoe she will wear in public. She's also American, and only her mother is allowed to use her birth name.  
Crowley introduced himself as "Anthony" and she pronounces it "An-to-ny" as an ongoing joke on her part. She always waves a dramatic arm when she says his name. She never does get used to calling Aziraphale anything other than Antony's Angel.  
It's too bad Anathema already had Newt because...well....

When I can magically draw without the years of dedicated practice it takes (like my writing, yo), the first thing I will draw is Twelve.

**Story Seven: "The Cottage, the Party"**  
aka The One Where I Planted All My Issues With Parties on Aziraphale  
I want a Crowley to make me feel better  
I am making no claims that Crowley is a magnificent singer. He sings just like she did as Ashteroth. He's fair, and it makes Aziraphale happy, and that's what matters.

**Story Eight: "The Cottage, the Godson"**  
I made a departure from fanon here with Harriet. I've worked with teenagers for (muffled) years, and I find her behavior at the park to be pretty level headed parenting. She seemed pretty normal to me. Tad is the one who creeps me out with his MAN CHILD nonsense. This chapter danced around a lot before it decided to be in her POV.  
No, I never told how they came to know the truth about Crowley and Aziraphale, but you may rest assured that it had to do with Aziraphale's tendency to forget his Francis accent.

**Story Nine: "The Cottage, the Storm"**

This was the only fic I got to do for Ineffable Husbands week, as I was focused on work and commissions ;.; the storm's name, "Tova," is related to Thor in Norse mythology, but I found out it means gentle in Hebrew. XD Whoops. And that's Crowley's fave language (in this story).

References Loki's punishment for the death of Baldur, which is to to be captured and tortured by the slow drip from his son's poisoned fangs.

ALSO references _The Secret Garden_ by Frances Burnett, in which it is repeatedly said that the wind was "wutherin' about the 'ouse." Aziraphale read it to Crowley, who pretended not to pay attention but loved the bit at the end where father and son are reconciled.  
There are no dead bodies in the secret garden, regretfully.

The maneuver of flicking a blanket to float perfectly over the person in bed is borrowed from my mother, and it always amazed me as a child. I was a simple child.

**Story Ten: "The Cottage, the Picnic"**  
The food Crowley asks about is moretum, an ancient herbal cheese spread for bread. They had it in Rome, with the oysters (their first date <3). researched so many ancient foods and then ended up not listing them because it messed up the pacing.  
Other than that, I just wish the show had let Aziraphale look competent at least once. Humph.

**Story Eleven: "The Cottage, the Ceremony"**  
Tucked neatly in some book in their cottage is a "To Do" list in Aziraphale's handwriting which includes "Tell Twelve we are celestial [scribbled out, Crowley's handwriting: OCCULT] [neatly marked out, Aziraphale's writing: supernatural] beings [Crowley's hw: IN case any angels pop them out when they get over excited <3 <3]"

Clearly, this item was never marked off.  
\--  
You may rest assured that there was an entire argument the next morning over Crowley's sense of style, in which Twelve accuses him of stealing it from hell, and he is horrified and snaps that Hell stole it from HIM, and Aziraphale points out hell doesn't even really wear black, something like this:

Twelve's disappointment in Crowley is very deep, which he thinks is completely unfair. Look at Aziraphale! He wears pale colors! He has soft hair! He wears wings on everything! Look at the mug he is drinking from right now ("Leave my mug out of this, Crowley").

Twelve waves a dismissive hand. "Yes, but your angel was already angelic, that was established. It's part of his whole aura. YOU, on the other hand, I thought you had a sense of STYLE and it's just a sense of HELL."

(Aziraphale will come to Crowley's defense by pointing out that, actually, demons don't wear all black. Mostly they were things that are dirty and third-hand and don't believe in laundry soap, none of which matches Crowley's personal aesthetic. Then he'll go get his secret collection of paintings and pictures of Crowley Through the Ages which even Crowley didn't know about. While Crowley Ngks to the side, Twelve coos over the demonic equivalent of Crowley's embarrassing baby pictures.) Only after he recovers does Crowley make the point that black is HIS Aesthetic and the goths and punks and nuns and priests and whatnot all stole it from HIM and yes he did get in trouble when priests tried to steal his look, the jerks.

The last two stories are so schmoopy that I know I should be completely ashamed of myself, but I'm not.

<3,  
Quill

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley's pronouns are correct. A dress does not a woman make; he looks gorgeous in dresses and he knows it.


End file.
